Sam and Tom took a seat.
Commander Woods closed the soundproof door and took a seat.
The president said, “You’ve found something?”
Woods opened his laptop. The image still depicted a balloon a few feet off the surface of the water within the Panama Canal. “Yeah, what do you think of this.”
There was a collective, audible exhale throughout the room as the president, secretary of defense, and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff took in the significance.
The president spoke first. “So, that confirms it. The USS Omega Deep did reach the Pacific.”
Woods cocked an incredulous eyebrow. “You’re not surprised, Mr. President?”
“No. Far from it,” the president replied. “I would have been, but some recent information has come to my attention, and we were already just about certain the Omega Deep was now in the Pacific.”
“What news, sir?” Woods asked.
“I believe Mr. Reilly requested one of the tech engineers to locate the Russian-owned spy vessel, the Vostok?”
“That’s right,” Sam confirmed.
The president expelled his breath. “Well, it was found.”
That came as no surprise to Sam. The Russian intelligence gathering vessel disguised as a fishing trawler was a poor national secret. He had no doubt that the U.S. Navy would make short work of finding its present location.
“Where is it, sir?” he asked.
“The South Pacific, roughly two hundred miles south of the Galapagos Islands.”
Sam made the connection immediately. Could it be that their Russian counterparts had achieved what the entire U.S. Navy couldn’t, and located the USS Omega Deep? The thought intrigued him as well as terrified him.
“Have they found the Omega Deep?” Sam asked.
“No,” the president replied. “We’re unsure what they were doing there, but it’s almost a certainty they’ve had contact with our missing submarine.”
“Why?”
The president addressed the secretary of defense. “Perhaps you had better explain it to him, ma’am.”
The secretary nodded. “The Vostok appears to have succumbed to an accident, rendering it lifeless. The entire ship is currently drifting helplessly.”
“Any survivors?” Sam asked.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t look like it from any satellite images, but we’ll find out as soon as we put someone on board.”
“What did the Russians say?”
“Nothing.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “You haven’t told them?”
“No.”
“You going to tell the Russians?”
“Hell no.”
“Why not?”
She bit her lower lip. “We want to work out what went wrong first.”
Sam stared at her, noticing her tentative response. “What’s wrong with the ship, ma’am?”
“Everything.” She smiled. “The entire ship’s turned to ice.”
“You mean it’s crashed into an iceberg?”
“No. I mean, the entire thing’s been turned into ice. Like someone picked it up as they would a toy and left it in the freezer for a month until it became a block of solid ice.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“No.”
Sam expelled a deep breath but kept his mouth shut firm, his mind, pensive.
The secretary was the first to break the silence. “You know exactly what this means, don’t you?”
Sam nodded. “It means the Vostok has been experimenting with blackbody.”
“Exactly,” the secretary said.
The president said, “So you see now why we weren’t surprised to discover the Omega Deep had crossed the Panama Canal and entered the Pacific.”
Sam asked, “But where did the Russians get another piece of blackbody from? I thought the last of it had been used on the Omega Deep’s hull?”
The general answered that question. “The Omega Deep kept a single block of the unique material as a back up to power part of its redundancy sound absorbing system. It would appear that someone from the Omega Deep has been in contact with the crew from the Vostok. Maybe they dived the stricken submarine and salvaged the blackbody, which someone on board the Vostok used to experiment with, resulting in their deaths.”
Sam recalled how the original experiments with blackbody proved the material to be highly unstable, causing nearby subatomic particles to compress on themselves, becoming denser and in the process, colder. If the chain reaction was left unhindered, it would ultimately end in freezing everything around it – and in the ocean, that would most likely lead to ice and snow.
He said, “When will your team leave?”
“Any minute now. We’re still gathering the members of an elite team to investigate the Vostok. Also, we’re taking no chances of someone else finding the Omega Deep, so we’ve deployed an aircraft carrier to the region – the USS Gerald R. Ford.”
Sam asked, “Who were you thinking of sending to investigate the Vostok?”
The president leveled his gray eyes at him and said, “You.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Galapagos Islands
Sam chartered a private aircraft – a Cessna Citation CJ3 – from Hawaii to the Galapagos Islands. The aircraft banked to the south, revealing an island surrounded by azure waters, as the pilots set up for their final approach onto San Cristóbal. It was the easternmost island in the Galápagos archipelago, as well as one of the oldest geologically.
According to his briefing notes, the island’s official Spanish name, “San Cristóbal" comes from the patron saint of seafarers, St. Christopher.
The reference made Sam feel that it was a good omen in their quest for the lost submarine, Tom’s father, and 192 U.S. submariners.
The Cessna landed on the short runway, its pilots easing her gently onto the blacktop and braking hard, before taxiing to the newly built hangar.
Across from him, Tom remained sound asleep.
Sam waited until the pilots shut down the engines and then woke Tom up. “We’re here.”
Tom sat up, unclipped his seatbelt, and glanced out the window. It was a warm day, with a crisp blue sky, but the ocean breeze kept the temperature to a balmy 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Tom smiled with appreciation. “Nice place.”
“Don’t get too enamored with it. We’ve got a pleasure cruiser waiting for us at the beach to take us away from the Galapagos Islands, due south, to the Vostok.”
Tom shrugged. It wasn’t the first time Sam had teased him with a nice work environment only to be torn away to the middle of nowhere. “Tell me again, why the USS Gerald R. Ford is en route to the location, but we have to hire our own yacht to get there?”
“Plausible deniability,” Sam said. “The secretary wants us to investigate without involving the U.S. Navy.”
Tom nodded. “That way if the Russians discover their vessel’s been damaged, the secretary doesn’t have to explain why she kept it secret.”
“Exactly.”
“How long until the Maria Helena gets here?”
“Another two days.”
Sam grabbed his gear, and he and Tom made their way through the airport. Outside, a local tour guide met them with his Jeep and drove them the short distance to the harbor.
“San Cristóbal Island,” the guide said, “is composed of four fused volcanoes, all extinct. It is home to the oldest permanent settlement of the islands and is the island where Darwin first went ashore in 1835.”
The Jeep took them east along the coast to Puerto Chino. Sam took in his environment, devouring the sights like a Thanksgiving feast. The island was host to a number of unique flora and fauna, including, frigate birds, Galápagos sea lions, Galápagos tortoises, blue and red-footed boobies, tropicbirds, marine iguanas, dolphins and swallow-tailed gulls. Some of its more famous flora included the Galapagos rock-purslane and cut leaf daisy.
The ride ended quickly, and Sam and Tom climbed out with their duff
el bags.
Anchored in the bay was a Prestige 620 pleasure cruiser, named, Matilda.
Its naval architecture was a combination of rich teak and ultramodern carbon fiber flybridge and cabin. It was powered by twin 700 HP Volvo Penta D11 IPS900 engines, allowing the pleasure cruiser to reach a cruise speed of 18.1 knots.
A local tourist operator met them at the harbor, and the operator ferried them out to the yacht in a small tender.
Once onboard, Sam and Tom quickly checked over the yacht. She was kept in pristine condition, and originally there for a rich guest who would arrive in another two weeks. Sam had promised to have the yacht back in a matter of days with plenty of time to spare.
Confident the yacht was in a safe condition, Sam pulled up the anchor, and Tom set a course due south toward the last known location of the now drifting, stricken, Vostok.
It took nearly twenty-four hours to reach the Vostok.
Sam switched off the sports cruiser’s autopilot and took control of the helm. He eased the yacht in a slow cruise around the much larger Russian vessel. From the outside, it certainly looked like it had once been a fishing trawler. Of course, that’s what it was supposed to look like. It no longer mattered, the entire vessel was now frozen solid. Whatever secrets it once knew, would never be told. Thick ice caked its deck, and several pieces of the overhead rigging had collapsed under the weight.
Tom expelled a breath. “It’s a wonder the entire ship didn’t sink under the weight.”
“Yeah, that surprised me, too. I suppose it shows that the internal hull is hollow and not filled with water for its live holding tanks – otherwise, that too, would have frozen solid, and then the entire thing would have lost its buoyancy.”
After the second reconnaissance trip, Tom said, “Should we tie up alongside the trawler?”
Sam shook his head, “I don’t like the idea. If something changes and the Vostok goes under, I’d rather it not take our little pleasure cruiser with it.”
“Agreed. But what other choice do we have?”
“We could take the little runabout across.”
“Sure, but then what do we do with Matilda? The water’s too deep to anchor out here, and there’s only you and me, so someone’s going to have to stay on board.”
Sam shrugged. “It’s okay. You can stay here. Just bring me closer to the Vostok, and I’ll climb aboard. Keep your eyes out for me on deck. I’ll give you a wave when I’m done.”
“You want to go and explore a frozen ghost ship by yourself?”
“No. You have a better idea?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, so that’s the plan, then.”
Tom adjusted the twin throttles as he gently maneuvered Matilda in beside the Russian trawler. Sam, standing on the bow, waited until the two ships were nearly touching and then leaped across onto the lower aft deck of the Vostok.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sam’s feet landed on the icy deck and slipped out from under him. His back struck the solid ice with force, winding him. He gritted his teeth, rolled onto his side, and carefully stood up. His boat shoes were poorly designed for walking on ice.
Over his portable radio, he heard Tom say, “Are you all right? That looked like it hurt.”
Sam thought he could hear the slightest snigger, as Tom tried to restrain his amusement. “I’m fine, Tom. The deck’s a little slippery, that’s all.”
“Okay, let me know if you need me and be careful.”
“I will.”
Sam’s eyes raked the icy ghost ship. He tried to imagine what it would have been like. Someone must have experimented with the blackbody, and then minutes later there would have been an icy storm. By the time anyone knew what was happening, they were most likely already frozen.
Just in case, he shouted, “Hello. Is there anyone alive here?”
There was no response.
He didn’t expect there to be.
But just in case, he shouted again, “I’m coming aboard to help.”
Next to the frozen fishing lines was a fish-hook. The handle was nearly six feet high and made of wood, with a sharp metal u-shaped hook and spike on the end. Its hook was joined with the rigging by ice, but it didn’t take much for Sam to free it.
Sam gripped it with his gloved hand. He was thankful he’d had the foresight to bring a thick jacket and snow gloves but forgot about crampons, or at least something more practical than his boat shoes.
He pointed the spike into the ice and used the tool to brace himself as he made his way across the open deck.
It took him several minutes to reach the bridge.
Ice throughout the ship had started melting, and the internal stairwell leading to the upper bridge had a small stream of water running down it. Sam carefully climbed the stairs until he reached the main door. Like everything else on board the stricken vessel, it was frozen shut.
He took the fish-hook and used the spike to chisel away at the thin layer of frozen ice. The ice was already thawing and came apart easily enough.
Sam carefully opened the door.
Inside, were the bodies of several sailors snap frozen in time. Sam took in their appearance in an instant. Despite being frozen, he could make out some of the tell-tail signs of seasoned fishermen, including heavily callused hands. For a moment, he wondered if the U.S. Navy had gotten it wrong, maybe the Vostok was indeed a fishing vessel?
He glanced at the instruments. The digital course plotters, radar, depth sounder, and engine readings were all destroyed. He would have loved to know where they were heading. At the back of the navigation table was a pair of Admiralty charts for the region. There were a few penciled notations and some comments regarding continental shelves, deep reefs, and other high yield fishing spots.
Sam put them back. They were nothing more than a simple ruse. After all, why would a Russian fishing trawler need to travel all the way to the South Pacific to find its catch? No, this was an intelligence gathering vessel, despite its clever façade.
So far, all he’d found confirmed what they already knew about the Vostok. What he needed to do was locate where the crew had been conducting their experiments with the blackbody material. And that meant getting below decks.
He carefully made his way back down the icy cascade of the internal stairwell.
Sam scoured the frozen deck for a means of accessing the areas below the deck. It seemed like someone had almost gone out of their way to remove all evidence of the multiple decks below. On his second lap of the main deck he spotted the little hatchway near the bow. It was frozen over with three or four inches of ice, but visible.
He chipped away at it using the fish-hook, the same way he had done with the doorway to the bridge. Sam was getting better at the technique, and within about fifteen minutes he’d broken through the edges of the hatch, allowing him to dig the hook into the hatch and pry it open.
It was dark inside.
Sam retrieved a small flashlight from his jacket and shined it into the hold. A vertical ladder led at least ten feet into the deck below. He felt like he was entering the frozen cool room at the butchers. At the bottom of the ladder, he swept the room with his flashlight.
The place looked like it was one giant hold for live fish. Of course, there was no water and no fish. It was most likely more of the subterfuge used by the Russians to promote their image of a legitimate fishing trawler and not an intelligence gathering vessel.
At the end of the hold, there was a closed doorway that appeared to lead toward the stern.
Sam turned the door handle. It was a little stuck but gave way with a little bit of forceful encouragement.
The door opened, and it led to a single passageway that ran the length of the ship. Sam slowly made his way aft, shining his flashlight into every room he passed. This section of the ship appeared to have been more affected by the icy event, with every wall and room covered in thick ice, at some parts more than a foot deep.
He heard the crackle of Tom’s
voice in his portable radio. “Sam. You’ve been there for nearly an hour. Is everything all right?”
Sam depressed the microphone and replied, “All good over here, Tom. It looks like a frozen ship. No survivors. No answers.”
“Are you ready to come back?”
“Soon. I’ll do one more reconnaissance sweep, and then I’ll come and get warm.”
“Give me a call when you’re ready.”
“Will do.”
Sam turned to make his way back to the original hold and up the ladder.
He gripped the first rung of the ladder and stopped.
Behind him, he heard the sound of someone chiseling away at the ice. Sam stepped back down the ladder and shone his flashlight around the room. The sound continued to echo in the hold, but he couldn’t quite make out its precise location.
He closed his eyes and listened.
The sound was distinctly coming from the portside of the dark hold. Sam shined his flashlight in that direction and stopped to listen.
The chiseling sound stopped for a few moments.
Sam felt his heart race.
Had his mind been playing tricks on him?
Then it started again.
Sam snapped the flashlight around, fixing it straight at the origins of the noise. The sound had stopped, but Sam audibly gasped, because in its place a hand now penetrated the frozen floor, extending upward with a metal chisel.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Svetlana heard the stranger’s voice and froze.
“Hello, I’m here to help,” came a confident man’s voice. “Are you all right?”
“I’m down here,” she said in fluent English, without a trace of her Russian accent. She waved her hand through a hole she had broken in the ice above her head.
“Okay, just step back. I’m going to break through. Is anyone else alive down there?”
She felt her chest constrict at the question. Did he just imply that no one else survived the disaster? “No. It’s just me. What about everyone else?”
“I’m sorry, I haven’t found any other survivors.”
That confirmed it. She was the only survivor. Svetlana stepped back into her surveillance room and listened as the stranger struck the icy roof of her confines with something heavy. Broken pieces of ice fell through the gap and into her room.
Omega Deep (Sam Reilly Book 12) Page 18
